Other economic arguments for mini-lateral blocks can be found in the new commercial or strategic theory. The new trade theory suggests that, contrary to popular opinion, a comparative advantage is arbitrary. States that intervene strategically, particularly in certain technology industries, could take advantage of regional scale effects and thus create comparative advantages in those countries. The new protectionist implications of strategic trade theory saw the United States abandoning its post-war free trade policy in the late 1980s. Geographer Richard Grant notes that institutional changes in the country are critical to U.S. trade policy through interactions between international and national policies. While American hegemony was strengthened in the post-war years by a free trade policy, in the 1980s, under pressure from increasing competition from Japan and Germany, regionalism became an increasingly popular foreign policy instrument. The Clinton administration, for example, was much more convinced by the arguments about the non-benefits of free trade and the benefits of strategic trade policy. For some commentators, the abandonment of the United States from its post-war trade liberalization and free trade policy had a domino effect as other countries began to transform into a more regional economic organization in trade.
Within the multilateral trading system, the European Union acts with many countries around the world. Most multilateral trade agreements of the European Union are coordinated through the World Trade Organization (WTO). This means that the EU must respect the trading system agreed by all WTO members. The WTO is a multilateral trade organisation based on the accession of several different governments and political institutions, such as the EU, the largest political entity in the WTO. Decisions are based on a consensus among the participating members. Australian governments have long struggled to reconcile neoliberal political priorities with the need to address an agri-environmental crisis that many critics believe requires some form of state intervention to resolve them.